This brief, part of NCHE's new Best Practices in Homeless Education series, examines several successful housing agency and school district collaborations from across the nation and explains how this type of collaboration can help reduce the frequency of family moves and promote school stability.

This brief from Chapin Hall looks inside the research on the longstanding housing crisis in the United States caused by the ongoing lack of affordable housing. Using 2007 figures, the brief explains how many families spend a large percentage of their income on housing, leaving little money for other necessities such as food, clothing, and health care.

This paper from the National Alliance to End Homelessness and Enterprise Community Partners examines the existing research on family homelessness. The paper, by Marybeth Shinn of Vanderbilt University, examines existing research and indicates that families experiencing homelessness are similar to other low-income families and primarily lack access to affordable housing. The author discusses the important role of housing subsidies in helping families to prevent or end their homelessness and maintain housing stability. The paper also discusses the role of services in housing stability and family well-being.

This publication and accompanying resource webpage from the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) highlight the success of local homeless education liaisons who have inspired their schools and communities to provide housing to unaccompanied youth. Their innovative housing programs make creative use of minimal funding to give young people the safety and support they need to complete high school and continue into higher education. The publication offers ten steps to consider for four different temporary housing models for unaccompanied youth: host homes; group homes; independent living; and emergency shelters. In addition, resource links provide sample youth applications, host home applications, power of attorney forms, parental consent forms, confidentiality notices, job descriptions, posters, flyers, PowerPoint presentations, data collection tools, and other useful forms and documents.

When runaways and homeless youth cannot be reunited with their families, the creation of housing models that also address the service needs of youth is one solution to ending youth homelessness. The brief from the National Alliance to End Homelessness outlines a spectrum of youth housing models that connect affordable housing, self-sufficiency services, and positive youth development approaches. The brief also examines youth housing combined with positive youth development services and highlights four housing models and programs that demonstrate promise in housing for older adolescents and young adults.

This webpage from the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) provides information on youth housing models, best practices, funding, and public policy. The webpage also has links to various youth housing resources developed by HUD, HHS, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, and the Finance Project. NAEH hopes that this webpage will support to local organizations' efforts to expand the spectrum of housing opportunities available to homeless youth.

The Continuum of Care Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is a competitive community grant program designed to address the issue of homelessness in a comprehensive manner. This webpage provides contact information for Continuum of Care programs in each state.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) is dedicated solely to ending America's affordable housing crisis. NLIHC strives to achieve this goal by working in four program areas: public education, organizing, research, and policy advocacy. One particularly useful area of their website is their Congressional District Profiles page, where they provide housing affordability data for renter households in each congressional district by state.

Out of Reach, an annual publication from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, is a side-by-side comparison of wages and rents in every county, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), combined nonmetropolitan area and state in the United States. For each jurisdiction, the report calculates the amount of money a household must earn in order to afford a rental unit of a range of sizes (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 bedrooms) at the area’s Fair Market Rent (FMR), based on the generally accepted affordability standard of paying no more than 30% of income for housing costs. From these calculations the hourly wage a worker must earn to afford the FMR for a two bedroom home is derived. This figure is the Housing Wage.
View Out of Reach publications from previous years.

More than half of the youth who age out of foster care are soon homeless or experience housing instability. This July 2008 issue of the American Bar Association's Child Law Practice explains the different types of federal programs and other resources that may offer housing or funding for housing to these young adults.

This report, published by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, uses statistics and trends to describe the current state of housing in the US. It includes income and housing costs, median net wealth of owner and renter households, lowest-income households by cost burdens, median net wealth and homeownership rates by age and race/ethnicity, home prices by region and metropoltian areas, and more.
State of the Nation's Housing 2008
State of the Nation's Housing 2007
State of the Nation's Housing 2006
State of the Nation's Housing 2005
State of the Nation's Housing 2004
State of the Nation's Housing 2003

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is the primary federal government agency dealing with the issues of home ownership and homelessness within the United States. Browse their site to access numerous resources on these issues. Find information about homes and communities, organized by state, by selecting your state under "Local Information".